


Serumless

by whalesandfails



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Other, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Steve never gets serum, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, canon-divergent after captain america the first avenger, catfa divergence, established relationship Steve/Peggy, non-serum steve/winter soldier bucky
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-20 21:27:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14902334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whalesandfails/pseuds/whalesandfails
Summary: Steve never took the serum in the 1940's. Instead, he fought with Bucky and his friends as himself, coming out of the war minus a best friend but plus some grueling memories and a lovely wife. He never recovered Buck's body.Decades later, Steve has just buried his wife Peggy, he finds an old friend at her tombstone.





	Serumless

Steve wilted in his chair. He rocked back and forth, lackadaisical in his movements. Nothing was rushed now, nothing hurried.  
He had spent years hurrying. Rushing. Planning. So much had changed since then. So much, and yet so little. He glanced into the dim guest room - so little.  
He didn't know how Bucky had found him. He didn't know how Bucky knew his name. And yet he did. He recognized his face with its wrinkles and age spots, recognized a face Steve himself didn't always realize was his own when he glanced in the mirror.  
He stood up, moving through his living room. The life of a soldier had left him a comfortable living. But nothing too extreme. His walls were more populated with memories than art or expenses. He didn't like looking at his walls anymore.  
He grabbed a glass from the cabinet and was filling it with water from the faucet when there was a rustle from the guest room. The floorboards creaked to support the large weight of his oldest friend.  
Bucky was big before - big in his memories - but the serum Steve had declined that Bucky had been forced to ingest accompanied with Steve’s aged degradation of memories made Steve feel smaller than he remembered. Bucky stood in the doorway, the same. But different.  
The arm. It stood out in the homey wooden space, stark metal embellished with insignias Steve tried to ignore.  
The manifestation of everything that had gone wrong, he averted his eyes, gulping loudly, and slid the glass noisily over the worn linoleum of the counter.  
Bucky walked over, all predatory grace, strides purposeful and strong - similar to his gait before, but different enough that it looked alien to Steve. It lacked the easy lope of youth. Coupled with Buck’s other new movements, he was a replica. A phantom of a friend come and gone.  
But it was him, he was here. He gave Steve the same lopsided smile he gave whenever he “mothered” him too much. Steve didn't think there was such a thing as too much mothering. He replayed the same argument they had wasted time with over and over again in his head, first in Brooklyn, then in trenches during the second world war, then on snowy hill tops, then only in his memories.  
Bucky didn't start it now. Probably couldn't. He remembered Steve, knew where to look for him, knew his face, his compassionate eyes. But he didn't remember it all.  
When two days ago Buck stood in the one place Steve couldn't fathom. A metal arm grasped tightly over the inscribed Peggy Rogers written in stone. He thought it was Stark's son, the “Iron Man,” come to wish his father's old friend half-hearted public condolences. But the arm was attached to flesh, and above it, a cold face the mockery of the first person who he had loved standing over the last. And then the grey eyes softened, and it was Bucky.  
He drank the water slowly, still tense, waiting for attack or defense, Steve didn't know. He couldn't understand what Bucky had been through. If the lapses in memory were intentional or a byproduct of the continuous freezing and melting of his body. Didn't know how to ask. Just knew he was grateful for any version of Bucky that stood in his living room.  
“Steve,” Buck managed to rasp out, his water glass drained. Steve tried to look him in the eyes, but all the courage he held as Captain America bled slowly out of him. Cap didn’t know this Bucky, didn’t know this pain. Cap couldn’t help him here.  
Of course, Cap knew Bucky. They had been in the 107th together, then the Commandos. But Steve didn’t know how to equate this Bucky with the one from the war. Didn’t know how to be that version of himself. It had been years since he had buried that version of himself with a memory of a friend, no body to sink deep into the soil.  
He picked up the pitcher and filled his friend’s glass and met his eyes. It was just James. Steve retreated to his rocking chair, watched the broad shoulders, the muscles in the too-tight shirt move as he gulped down the second glass.  
They hadn’t said much, not since the cemetery. Buck had just settled into the passenger seat of his old car, the suspension whining from the weight the whole way home, used to the lightness of Steve being its sole passenger. Peggy hadn’t gone out much in the last few years. And still, even as his car moaned, Steve felt something settle into place then, felt something ease within him. They hadn’t spoken over the wail of his metallic beast, but still - Steve really didn’t want to.  
Buck didn’t know what he was walking into, what he had come home too. He never really planned to come back from that war, not truly. And after Steve showed up and rescued him, after they lived in the trenches together, he didn’t need any future greater than that. He didn’t know what to say, what Steve needed from him. He looked at Steve’s walls, what more could he give that his best friend didn’t already have? So Bucky didn’t say anything at all, just settled in, watched Steve’s schedule, learned who his friend was again. Steve didn’t talk for other reasons. He didn’t know how much Buck remembered from before. When Steve had asked where he was all those years, Bucky’s noncommittal response made him hesitate asking again. But he wanted to know. Steve wanted to know if he remembered the before. Remembered the feeling of having his broad expanse at his back, breath cool and fast on his neck before they’d do something dangerous and wily. Of sharing spaces, and glances, and the heart-wrenching worry after the rare battle when they would get separated, and the few seconds after when their eyes would meet and their foreheads would cool and they would know they were okay, they were okay. But they never talked about it. Only knew.  
But Steve, rocking in his chair he had built himself, his friend aged five years when he had aged fifty, didn’t know if he would still feel as known when he met Bucky’s eyes. So he avoided them.  
Bucky settled into the couch, a loud huff and a full-body collapse. The Winter Soldier only moved purposefully; but no one sane would call him graceful. His movement was too utilitarian, too harsh, and Bucky was put under and pulled out so often he never truly got used to the bulk. Steve scanned his friend, the department store clothes he had bought suddenly and quickly, his sole focus on getting Bucky out of his bloody leather. He looked to the hair tie holding back Buck’s long strands. Pink, sparkly - his daughter’s. Where Bucky had found it, he didn’t know. But Steve didn’t want to say anything about it, didn’t want to break the spell that meant it would disappear. He smiled to himself, if only his daughter could see this.  
Bucky took the smile as a sign, and opened his mouth. He coughed to clear his throat, it had been decades since he had made idle conversation. “So, Cap, what’s the plan today?” Steve’s eyes moved from where they had settled somewhere on his face into his eyes, startled by the volunteered words, but hiding it well.  
“A walk?” he asked, gesturing an easy arthritic thumb outside, “in good ol’ free America?” This he could do, this banter. It was second nature and slid off his tongue smooth as honey.  
Bucky’s eyebrows knitted together, “is this okay?” He gestured down at his grey sweatpants, loose on his hips, tight on his ankles. He was aware of fashion changes over the years, but not enough to know the current trends. Not enough to know how much he would be gawked at, metal arm hidden or no.  
Steve’s face softened, eyes liquid and warm. “Of course, Buck. Maybe grab the sweater to hide the bionic legend though. Someone will think you’re part of the Avengers.” When Bucky tilted his head in confused, Steve waved his hand in dismissal, not worth the effort to explain. He slowly stood, making his way towards the door to bend down and tie his shoes. He knew Bucky could go to the spare room and back in the time it took for him to walk a few feet. He listened to the loud footsteps retreating and the louder ones returning; no matter what he said or pleaded, Bucky insisted on keeping his combat boots when they deposited the rest of his gear in an anonymous dumpster.  
Steve wrestled with the lock on the door, aged and finnicky. This was something Peggy used to fix, when she was still able. Bucky moved up behind Steve, muscle memory shifting him in close, waiting patiently.  
All Steve wanted to do was lean his tired forehead against the frame of his door, and feel Bucky behind him, strong and present, for an eternity. But he took a deep inhale and forced the lock and door open in a smooth motion, Bucky still close on his heels but not nearly as present. Steve’s hands shook as he opened the door to the car and inserted the key into the ignition. The feeling of Buck at his back was ancient, was so ingrained he could shut his eyes and imagine it at any time, but the nostalgia hurt, ached. That Bucky was there and it wasn’t a phantom of a memory didn’t stop the loss from hurting in his chest.


End file.
